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by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 06:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18255383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: What happens right after the scene in the Endgame trailer when Natasha finds Clint in Japan? Clints look on the past and the last recent events in his life since Infinty War.Read Natashas view here:Living death





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**Author's Note:**

> I know, Clint calls her 'Nat', not 'Tasha' but I like that way more so I took the liberty to change that.
> 
> English isn't my first language. Be nice.

“Clint?”

First he didn’t even recognize the strange word to be his own name. The voice that spoke this word sounded familiar, and then again, not at all. It was a voice from another life of another man. A life that had ended out of nothing three years ago.

He actually didn't remember the first few days of it. Somewhen he had realized, that whatever had happened to Laura and his children wouldn’t happen to him. At that point he couldn’t cry anymore. There was no denial, no desperation, no tears left. Just nothingness and ice in his chest where his heart used to be. _You have a heart._ He had known something in his head had snapped, he had seen eyes like that in the mirror before. The expression of a man who had nothing left to lose. He had spent countless nights trying to forget it.

To think home could be a welcoming place for a man like him, a place full of love, had been a naive dream. They had called him an Avenger, next to a super soldier and a literal fucking god and somehow that had made him believe it was true. That there was a legitimate place for good in this world and his life. Something like justice, after all. That he could erase his past if he tried hard enough, have a real family and keep it safe. He would have fought and died and sacrificed everything but it hadn’t been enough. He never had a chance. The truth was, that there wasn’t justice, that he didn’t deserve it and he couldn’t protect shit.

A real home. How could he ever have thought, he was admitted to have something like that? He out of all people. As if he knew what that was supposed to be. Home had been hell as a child. If it had been the circus or his fathers house - the only difference had been, who had beaten him into obedience if he did as much as breath at the wrong moment. Home had taught him to take hits, to be invisible and not to ask questions. He was incredibly good at that.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. had become home, it had taught him that a man who never missed his target wasn’t applauded by the crowd. S.H.I.E.L.D. was a different kind of circus and he had become a lonely attraction, favored by his superiors, envied by fellow agents. Until finally what little sympathy they had shown him had turned into pure hate the day everything had gone to shit. 43. Fury had refused to tell him, but he had found out anyway and that horrendous number had burnt itself into his memory for all eternity. He had taken 43 innocent lives at a single day with all the deadly precision that was his trademark and all he could remember were blue eyes and a smile that still scared him to death in his nightmares. _You have a heart._ He had spent countless days wishing, he would have shot himself instead of trying to fight a god who bordered complete insanity. When he had come back to his senses afterwards, only one person had stood between him and all of the agents who would have gladly volunteered to correct that grief mistake.

Natasha.

He had found her asleep in front of the door to his room the next morning, hand at her gun. And the day after that. As well as the day after. When he told her she didn’t have to keep watch, didn’t have to take his side she had only raised a brow at him. “Trying to get rid of me Barton? I am not losing you again.” She had been deadly serious. “Not to Hydra, not to Lokis mindgames and at least to some stupid agent who isn’t brave enough to tell things into your face.” She had called it a debt, but it wasn’t just that. They were alike the two of them. Broken children with no other place to go, doing what they had practiced into perfection to please the audience. The lonely attraction of a circus that had promised a home, but had taken everything else.

 _Do you know what it feels like to be unmade?_ Of course she did. That night had been the first one she had spent at the other side of his door.

And now she stood there, once again between him and the person he once had been, slightly trembling, a look of pure disbelief on her face. She looked at him as if she knew him while he himself almost didn’t knew his own damned name anymore. It was hilarious and he would have laughed, if he had remembered how to. Instead he felt his insides turn when uncalled memories came back in an instant. This was too much.

“Tasha.”

He hadn’t heard his own voice for so long, it seemed to belong to someone else as well, like this name she had given him back just moments ago. He almost stumbled backwards when she threw herself into his arms, unsure what to do. This was Natasha, strong and fierce Natasha who had beaten the crap out of men double her size, and she was real and warm and _crying_ because of him for heavens sake and he didn’t knew what to do. She clinged to him, sobbed words into his neck about him being alive until he finally pulled her near and just held her.

When he had left the farm, the city, the continent, it had been with the intention to never come back again. He had buried what had been left of his family and his life under an oak and Clint Barton alongside. Clint who had failed everyone who've had needed his protection. How many had paid with their life for having faith in him? He had left home, his bow and his identity behind. And he had left Natasha behind, his partner, his friend, the only person left he really trusted. He had stared at her message at his phone before he had removed and crushed the sim card. He wasn’t particulary religious, but had thanked God that she was alive and had prayed silently for forgiveness. She would do well, she was strong, so much stronger than all of them. So had he thought. When he looked at her now, tears running down her face, awfully thin, he wasn’t so sure anymore. And it hurt more than he was prepared for.

She hit him into his chest when he stumbled over his own words, still processing the fact that she was here, somewhere in fucking Japan next to the men he'd just killed. He felt like the day he had met Stark in the little supermarket he used to buy his everday things, an ordinary toothbrush in his hand, unable to grasp the idea that both could exist concurrently. What did she do here? She hit his hand away again, still tears in her eyes but now screaming at him and he started to realize the terrible mistake he had made.

_I am not losing you again._

She hit and screamed and cried and hit some more and he just stared at her and couldn't bring himself to fight back. In the end it hadn't been Hydra or some crazy god who had defeated her. And that was, what she looked like, her hands clenched into fists, shaking and crying in midst the rain. Defeated, small and helpless. Neither an army of aliens nor the red room had managed to achieve that. He had done that to her. The guilt he felt almost crushed him and all he could do was stutter through a pointless apology. He tried to reason, tried to explain when in truth there wasn’t anything to explain and she knew. He had been afraid and too ashamed and he had run. He had never needed to explain to her, she had always known how he felt and had never judged him for it. Until now. He had never failed her, no matter what he had done, what the outcome had been. Until now.

_I trusted you._

There was judgement in her eyes and betrayal and hurt. Not for the horrible things he had done, but the fact, that he had locked her out of his life even if it had meant nothing but going all the way down together. He tried one last time to tell her, that she would be repelled if she would _really_ know him, a last attemp to keep everything away. She wouldn't understand what it felt like to lose himself, what it felt like trying to wash blood off his hands with blood, but who was he bullshitting. 

 _You know that I do_ \- and of course he did.

Finally she calmed down and her shoulders slumped a little while she watched the mess at the ground silently, they both now completely soaked by the rain. He let go of her hand he had caught mid-air and sighed. She was right to call him a coward. They had fought so many times together, saving each other lives. But when he had to fight his own demons, he had been too proud to ask for help and had lost far more than just his name. There were way darker places than death and they had seen them both. Maybe Clint hadn't been as useless as he had thought him to be. Maybe not having to fight a hopeless battle alone had been the whole point of it.

In all their missions and time spent together there had always been the unspoken agreement, that the only thing that counted was now. Yesterday was gone and tomorrow might never come. And now, they were both here and alive. It didn’t matter what had happened, it couldn't be changed. It didn't matter how much was lost, it only mattered what wasn't. He could change things now. No, that wasn't quite right, _he_ couldn't. But Clint Barton could.

_I am not losing you again._

It was something alike an incantation, a promise, an anchor - he thought it and she said it out loud, said she trusted his reasons, _wanted_ to trust him, wouldn't give up on him even if he did. Her voice was small but firm and he almost choked with relief at telling her how much he had missed her. Her and himself and everything he had replaced with violence asked for by the men who hired the invisible killer who didn't ask questions. He finally stopped trying to say anything at all because words couldn't possibly express the utter chaos anyway and just kissed her because he needed to. He needed to feel her and forget about regrets and guilt and all his fears and loneliness. Nothing good in his life had ever been meant to stay. But she wasn’t good. If he wanted or not, she would beat him all the way back to America and into himself again, like she had done before.

No, she wasn’t good. She stood in the middle of a bloody massacre and kissed him back and the hell - they both knew too well - out of him. She was far away from good.

And she would take him home.


End file.
